10/01/2008

Does moderator of VP debate have a financial interest in Obama winning?

Gwen Ifill has a new book that is scheduled to come out on inauguration day on Obama. Here is a question: will the book sell better if Obama is president? It seems pretty clear that she picked inauguration day in the hopes of tying it in with an Obama presidency. An Obama presidency means that more books will be sold.

15 Comments:

Can you imagine if say Brit Hume was to moderate this debate and had a book, "The Breakthrough," that shed new light on the Maverick McCain and was set for release on inauguration day?

Why did it take the Drudge Report to bring this to light? Had the reverse been the case, the liberal media would have been be all over it from the outset. All we would have heard would be headlines like "Conservative Biased Host to Moderate Debate."

Governor Palin needs to take charge and act presidential by demanding an impartial moderator, not a moderator biased by a financial interest in making the Governor look bad.If Ifill won't step aside, then the "debate" should be reduced to Ifill interviewing her man's man Biden, which should be about as interesting as watching paint dry.

To Clark:Whatever happened to having a sense of propriety? Ifil should have taken herself out of the debate. Judges recluse themselves all the time. The fact she doesn't shows an arrogance befitting the left and the mainstream media. Such is their cocoon that they must live in a world were everyone is perfect... Well, everyone like themselves. The rest of us are ignorant and/or victims. If she really thought about this, she would step aside.

Clark, did you read the article that Dr. Lott linked in his blog? Just curious.

Anyway, it's not so much an issue of bias as it is conflict of interest. I suspect anyone who would be moderator would be biased to some extent one way or another...I can accept that to a point.

The problem here is that she stands to make a considerable financial gain should Obama become POTUS. I can't imagine a more textbook example of "conflict of interest." Even unbiased judges recuse themselves in a case involving a conflict of interest.

Although, I suppose it doesn't really conflict with her interest at all, huh?

I'm willing to grant that there is a conflict of interest. I still don't see evidence of bias, which is what I asked about, Michelle Malkin's typical hyperbolic rants not withstanding. But I hardly think that a person invoking Hitler Youth is one to be lecturing about "propriety."

Clark, did you actually read the whole article and decide to pull out just the scant Malkin references or did you do a word search on the page to see if she was mentioned by name so you could name drop in this thread?

No one expects Malkin to be impartial. But that's beside the point. Neither the article Dr. Lott links nor the blog he posted is about bias...we expect that from the media anyway. The issue is conflict of interest. Period.

Imagine if Lance Ito had had a stake in a book deal outlining why he thought OJ Simpson was guilty that would be released the day after the Simpson verdict. If Simpson were found guilty, no big deal...no one would care. If OJ were found innocent, he'd have made a mint. In such a case, Ito would have been required to recuse himself.

I'm not really sure why the fact that 23% of a story (approximately 266 of 1166 words) "relying" on one source is a bad thing...especially when you know the source and your own thoughts about said source.

I cut and pasted the article into Word and then deleted the Malkin comments. The article still stands even without her comments, leaving your ad hominem criticisms on Malkin baseless in the case of this article.

In any case, I give up. It's obvious that you'll not let facts get in the way of your predispositions.

Nevertheless, I will indulge your last question here:

David--pointed out media bias for not reporting the story in the first place

Jim--obviously humor. Oprah? LOL

cbar--"biased by a financial interest" (See "conflict of interest")

You--asking for evidence of her bias (even though no one mentioned her bias specifically...other than potential financial gain--i.e. conflict of interest)

anotherwatcher--"CONFLICT OF INTEREST"

Jim--suggested judges recuse themselves in such cases...not because of bias but because of propriety

Me--pointing out difference in "bias" and "conflict of interest"

You--still asking about bias (still not brought up) and bringing up Malkin

I think Clark was referring to my reference to media bias but my comment about media bias referred to the fact that the media seems to only have a lukewarm interest in this story.

If a 72+ year old journalist on a right leaning news network had a book entitled "Breakthrough: Politics and Age in the Era of John McCain" scheduled to come out on inauguration day, we would be seeing a very different posture on the part of the media.